When Bob Quinn sits down after the season to once again decide Jim Caldwell's fate, the third straight year he'll be sincerely mulling that decision, he'll have plenty of things to put in the minus column.

Ten men on the field. Nine men on the field. The perpetual state of mediocrity the Detroit Lions seem to be in. And the fact that he is having that discussion with himself for a third straight season.

But here's one thing even the most ardent of Caldwell bashers can admit the Lions always-under-fire coach has going for him: Tuesday's Pro Bowl vote.

The Lions had just one player picked for the NFL's annual all-star game, cornerback Darius Slay. And while that vote — which combines fan, player and coach ballots — is in no way a complete representation of the talent Caldwell has to work with, it's at least a good snapshot.

The Lions, 8-6 with a chance to reach double-digit victories for the second time in Caldwell's four seasons as coach, are one of only two teams with a winning record to put fewer than two players in the Pro Bowl.

The NFC South co-leading Carolina Panthers, with linebacker Luke Kuechly as their lone representative, are the other.

The Lions aren't devoid of talent, and no one is suggesting as much. They have one of the game's 10 best quarterbacks in Matthew Stafford, a deep group of wide receivers led by Marvin Jones, two specialists in Matt Prater and Jamal Agnew who easily could have been picked for the game, and one of the league's most dependable safeties in Glover Quin.

But when compared to their peers, by their peers, the Lions don't stack up in talent, performance or both.

“I don’t know if there’s a correlation there," Caldwell said Wednesday when asked about the discrepancy between the Lions' record and Pro Bowl vote. "A lot of people do. I think team’s as important as anything, but I’m certainly proud of the guys that got nominated, voted for, that are on it. But I think more so than anything else we’re very interested in is how the team plays and plays together.

"That’s the thing that I think we look at most is if you’re playing well or playing well as a unit, individual recognition will come, but that's not the ultimate sort of accomplishment."

Coaches can't be judged on their win-loss record alone. There's much more that defines who is a successful coach.

And Quinn shouldn't make any decisions about Caldwell's future based only on what he's done with the talent at hand. The more important thing is to what height he believes Caldwell can take the Lions.

The Lions are neither underachieving nor overachieving this year. They struggle against good teams, beat up on the bad ones, and hold their own against the rest of the middling ones just long enough to usually put the game in Stafford's hands.

Here's the list of the other teams with a single Pro Bowl representative this year: The Dolphins, Giants, 49ers and Buccaneers.

Yuck.

And of the five teams that have no Pro Bowlers — the Packers, Bears, Colts, Browns and Jets — only the Packers, when Aaron Rodgers is healthy, are even close to being decent.

I don't know what Quinn will do when this season comes to an end. It could be in two weeks, if the Lions don't get any help. It could be in five days if they lay an egg against a Bengals team that just so happens to have two Pro Bowlers (but not much else on its roster). If they're really lucky, it'll be sometime in January after what's sure to be another resounding playoff loss.

But when Quinn sits in his office on the second floor of the Lions' Allen Park training facility and ponders Caldwell's future, he also needs to take stock of the nameplates on the lockers one floor below and ask himself what else needs to change.